Feng Shui Simplified: Five Principles For Your Ethnic Home Decor Project

Feng Shui Simplified: Three Principles For Your Ethnic Home Decor Project

Feng Shui? What is it? A relatively simple question that can be difficult to answer. Feng Shui is an ancient art and science developed over 3,000 years (some sources state 7,000 years) ago in China. Simply put it is a body of knowledge about balancing the energies of any given space to assure the health and good fortune for people inhabiting it.

Feng means wind and shui means water. In Chinese culture wind and water are associated with good health, thus good feng shui came to mean good fortune, while bad feng shui means misfortune.

The art of placement is a good way to describe feng shui. Placement of your furniture, belongings and even yourself within your home or surroundings largely determines your experience. Feng shui provides a way of bringing balance, comfort, and harmony into your environment and has its place in ethnic home decor.

We are approaching the topic of Fung Shui and ethnic home decor from a fun standpoint. In other words, we’re keeping it light-hearted by sharing five basic principles of feng shui to get you started. However, we will provide a minute glimpse of the basis of feng shui.

The Ba Gua and Feng Shui Compass

The Bagua map, sometimes referred to as a “treasure map”, is used in Feng Shui as a guide to help you map the energies of your home along with a compass. The Ba-Gua is an octagonal grid containing the symbols of the I Ching, the ancient oracle on which Feng Shui is based. Knowing the Bagua of your home will help you understand the connection of specific Feng Shui areas of your home to specific areas of your life.

The Lo-Pan is the Feng Shui compass. It is used to define the Bagua of a home in order to access deeper Feng Shui information about a site or a building.

Mastering Feng Shui could take years. It certainly can not be done by simply reading a book or visiting a website. Still, its principles are grounded in common sense and practicality. Thus, following a few simple rules may improve the surroundings in which you live.

This is about as deep as we are going to go with the origins of Feng Shui so we can get to the fun part of how you may use the principles of Fung Shui and make them your own by incorporating them with your ethnic home decor.

Feng Shui Principle #1

Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui to harness positive energy and allow it to flow freely. Remove all obstacles, especially when you enter a room to create more open space and not obstruct the flow of energy.

Feng Shui Principle #2

The fish tank is considered as a favorable Feng Shui energy attractor because it has all the five Feng Shui elements with it; that is, water that fills the tank, sand, gravel and small stones, plants and other wooden structures in the aquarium (element wood), the metallic frame of the tank and the stand (element metal) and finally the yellow and orange colors of gold fish (used to bring prosperity) and other fish and the aquarium lighting (element fire). Never place an aquarium in your bedroom, or in your kitchen, as this brings unwanted Feng Shui energies to these two areas. In other words, an aquarium is bad Feng Shui for your bedroom and your kitchen.

Feng Shui Principle #3

Last, but certainly not least I want to share bedroom tips with you because most people spend a great deal of time there. The door should open at last 90 degrees to prevent restriction. Avoid stimulating wall colors; i.e., red or gold, opt for pastels. Do not have a sharp corner facing your bed. Mirrors should not be placed at the foot of the bed, rather to the side of the bed or at an angle. Bed placement under an exposed beam – this is considered a symbol of oppression and will subconsciously offset any feelings of peace or harmony your bedroom gives you.

Never place an aquarium in your bedroom, or in your kitchen, as this brings unwanted Feng Shui energies to these two areas. In other words, an aquarium is bad Feng Shui for your bedroom and your kitchen.

Coupling Feng Shui with ethnic home decor is easy. You will have a blast as you bring your ideas to life. Why not send us photographs of your design project? We would love to see them.